#paulclarke : his lawyer speaks on Radio 4
Lionel Blackman is Paul Clarke's lawyer.
Who's Paul Clarke? Where have you been? Over the weekend there was a twitter storm over Paul Clarke, who found a gun, took it to his local police station and was arrested and now faces five years in prison.
Mr Blackman spoke to Eddie Mair on yesterday's PM program on BBC Radio 4:
The sometimes-tenacious Eddie Mair didn't really seem to be able rev up his indignation much - maybe BBC lawyers were waving through the glass at him - and seemed to be itching to move on to something 'lighter', perhaps about a skateboarding duck.
It has to be said, Mr Blackman didn't substantially add to the sum of existing knowledge in this dismal case, other than to reveal, somewhat vaguely, that Mr Clarke had previously been caught in possession of a cattle prod. A cattle prod?
This does lend a tiny, tiny amount of weight to the sadly-common argument "'eee deserved it - eee's a shitbag / a repeat offender / a moron".
But, again, do any of those faults merit 5 years in prison? CF doesn't think so.
++ update ++ comments at the original story have been disabled for 'legal reasons' . Hmmmm....
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11 comments:
Dhhhhaaa Typical low mentality of plods. Mugg & beat up an old lady you get a caution. Do the right thing, they bang you up!
Labour's idea of justice!
Yes, he said that the cattle prod was mentioned in court, but it was not reported in the article.
He also said that the court had said it wished to test Mr Clarke's evidence under oath before sentencing. This was also not reported.
If you read back along your own threads you will see that you previously quoted Holly Thompson as saying that all the facts were in her article and she was present for both days of the trial.
CF in the red mist of your outrage you may wish to remind yourself that he actually hasnt been sentenced to 5 years in jail as yet, in fact it may not come to that. Lets just see before any further blood vessells go poppin !
Ps notwithstanding all the rights and wrongs you have managed to attract a whole host of comments on this topic, so every cloud eh ; )
Dippyness, where your assertions on oldlady beaters getting cautions based on actual incidents you are aware off or just products of your fertile imagination ???
oh er shooters ime off
The trolls are out, CF!
I seem to remember that one of Bliar's favourite lines at times like this was, "let's just wait and see what happens"!
What happened was invariably a complete and utter whitewash - all the way from Hutton to Menezes!
An old pal of mine once found a sub machine gun stashed in the woods in a military area. Presumably some squaddie was in the process of trying to steal it in stages. Anyway, my friend took the thing to the police (as you're supposed to) only to be promptly arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a section 1 firearm! Fortunately he had not been alone when he found this weapon and the witnesses were able to ensure it never went to trial. but if they'd not been present when he happened upon it, who knows what might have befallen him. The moral is simple, friends: if you find a gun just walk on by and say nowt; it's more trouble than it's worth to report it. If it's subsquently used to shoot a copper they've only themselves to blame.
Lessons will be learned, I suppose. Except, of course, they won't be.
The Police Service has a bureaucratic mentality. The Police, like all bureaucrats, are vindictive to those who cross them; those who 'challenge' their 'authority'. That's why the Police and Council Officers get along so well.
However, the Police share an unfortunate characteristic of other bureaucrats: they are stupid and can act in the most glaringly ridiculous manner, trusting in the inertia of their vast bureaucracy to make problems go away eventually.
All bureaucrats regard members of the public (MOPs, the Police call them) as their enemy. That is why they literally are enemies of the people. The Police, unfortunately, sit right at the centre of the bureaucratic behaviour control mechanism that is the State.
Barking Spider, you set the cause of the right back years with your public display of paranoia, claiming everyone who you dont approve of are trolls. What a chump.
Here again is a glaring example of the mess that the law gets into when the hurdle of 'Mens Rea' is removed from an offence.
There is no evidence to suggest that Mr Clarke had any criminal intent to do anything with the firearm, and if he had previously had intent, or thought that he might seek to profit from it in any way, he would almost certainly have just buried it in a box in his garden.
When the law removes the the 'guilty mind' , it makes potential criminals of all of us. This is the design of the current laws of this country, hundreds of which have been passed since 1997, which seek to make the good citizen fear prosecution.
In 1997, I knew the law. I knew the boundaries under which I lived in this country. Which one of us can say that now?
As I'm-English,-I've-got-shit-for-brains points out, the very last thing you should do if you find a sub-machine gun while out in the woods for a stroll with ones mates, is to pick it up.
Only a complete imbecile would "say nowt" and leave it to be found anticipating that the only satisfactory outcome would then be that it gets used to shoot a policeman.
It is not the moral that is simple Mr English. It is you.
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